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I cringe every time I hear the phrase, "At the end of the day.." spoken most often by news pundits, politicians and attorneys. As used, it never truly precedes an accurate summation of what may come to pass at the end of a single day. Rather, it's one of those useless, ad nauseum flip phrases meant to aggressively short-circuit a discussion or negotiation. Whenever I hear it used, I wish a loud buzzer would go off, a la Pavlov, so this phrase would fall out of use. I wonder if Safire's 'Irregulars' have weighed in on this?
Great show, by the way, and THANK YOU for your humor!

I thought that the distinction between gender and sex comes out of the LGBTQ movement. Sex is a technical term, referring to the genetic make up a person is born with. Gender is an assignment of choice. For example, a transgendered person may be of male sex, but identifies with the female gender.

Over a barrel... one history:

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/over-a-barrel.html

I suspect it was something to do with whipping. A position of powerlessness, at least.

When I visualize ramping up it seems to be a slow steady rise where revving up can be slow or a quick blip so ramping can seem more concise.

I understand from an old wood-block printing that to "have someone over a barrel", comes from parents spanking their children while having the childs head inside the barrel. apparently love is blind but the neighbors aren't deaf.

Is it possible that some nicknames originated when a child that is learning to speak mispronounces its own name? For instance, a small child trying to pronounce "Alexander" might come up with "Sasha" It seems that some nicknames are kind of blurred versions of the full name.

no! the reason we see gender now so much is because gender means something different. sex is a biological difference, gender is a societal difference. read some trans theory and then comment back on that.

Over a barrel may have derived from the Civil War practice of straddling a miscreant atop a barrel

My shampoo advertises an "advanced system that helps restore up to 2 years of damage in 1 month..." this sounds like a BAD thing to me...restoring damage? wouldn't repairing damage be more fitting? albeit false advertising....

I believe I once read that 'dori' comes from Japanese, meaning street. While on leave, American GIs would get their 'R&R' on a certain street in Tokyo or Okinawa...you get the picture.

okie dokie?

okey dokey is another rhyming pair that doesn't make a lot of sense.

To go "to hospital" is the british way to say it.

Patricia,

Do YOU need to take a pause before using "I" or "me"? Or does that come easily? I am studying for an English teaching degree and this still does not come naturally for me.

Thank you!

Is the word "luddite," used to mean a person who opposes technology, is that a derogatory term?

Brian (post #36): Usually used by British speakers.

I live in the Bronx and something that I hate is when people ask me if i'm going to the city, meaning Manhattan.

Mark (#7) see the first cartoon in this week's New Yorker, at the end of the Table of Contents.

Dissect. I agree wholeheartedly. Dissect means to take apart, literally dis-section. "Dy-sect" would be more akin to separating into two pieces, i.e. bisecting. The operating prefix here is "dis" not "di."

I hear news reporters often say "he went to hospital", instead of saying he went to THE hospital, is it proper to leave out, the, and if so why leave it out?

If you have to outsource files to India and give them instructions you can't use "drill-down" or "get your ducks in a row" or some type of baseball terminology. They won't get what you mean.

Furthermore, I trouble over "me" and "I" a lot when writing, thinking or speaking. I use "me" at the end of a sentence if it's in a prepositional phrase.

What about the use of onboard as a verb as in "That person is onboarded..." or We need to onboard these people (to the project).?

I meant, 'flee' of course. But on another note, I really enjoy Patricia's appearances. The whole "Mine Oliver" origin was enlightening.

Thanks for this topic! I've often wondered about the origins of some nicknames. Thanks for the information that it's not known why Peg is used for Margaret (won't spend more time on that); I'm still wondering about Polly from Mary, though--???? That's quite strange. . .

I checked the Times headline, and I think the caller misspoke. The article makes reference to a Capt. Logan Veath, a singular person who was making the plea.

19, I think "Keeping Up Appearances" was hilarious.

Politicians are always talking about "resiliency". Souldn't it really be "resilience"?

The referenced article in the New York Times with the headline using American's was correct because the body of the article was about a army major who tried to persuade the Iranian soldiers not to abandon their post.

Regarding the NY Times headline, the article talks about a specific person's plea to his squad to not flea the front. So the headline was indeed referring to one person, one American. The apostrophe 's' was appropriate.

Here is the NY Times Headline:

WORLD »

Iraqi Unit Flees Post, Despite American’s Plea

"myself" strikes me as an Irishism, along with things like "himself" and "your man."

But, in a related subject, isn't it redundant to introduce one's opinion by saying, Me, personally . . ." ??

I have another New York Times mistake to point out: principle for principal in a NYT Magazine article this Sunday. Sorry, Daphne Merkin--the Times may well be understaffed, as Ms. O'Connor guessed...

Re: "Nard" as a nickname for Leonard: there was an underground comic in the 60's called "Nard & Pat".

i've always wondered why it's acceptable to refer to someone as a "woman writer" or "woman pilot" instead of a "female" whatever. It doesn't seem to work the other way around--you'd never say "man writer" or even "man dancer."
my friends think i'm being an oversensitive feminist when I bring this up but it just seems grammatically incorrect to me.

Re: Mine Ed, mine Oliver, etc.
My mother often spoke of her sister as "our Helen." Helen was a common name and many families had a Helen, so I assume that to distinguish my Aunt Helen from others she was designated as "our." Similarly, the brothers were spoken of as "our Joe," "our Adam," and "our Frank." They all often spoke of my mother as "our Anne."

I noticed, too, in that awful British comedy shown on PBS, the sisters are spoken of as "our Rose," "our Hyacinth," "our Daisy," "our Violet." (By way of explanation, I watched it for a while because a friend thought it was the funniest thing she'd ever seen.)

My late Italian-American father-in-law was named Vincent, but everyone called him Jimmy. I think it's a common practice.

Caller, I wonder whether the late Iona-NC State basketball coach was Vincent Valvano?

My mother wanted to name me Katy, specifically with a "y," so she looked up all the spellings of my name. A Katie would be a Katherine (the "i" and the "e" in the birth name), and a Katy is a Kathryn. I know some Catherines that go by Katie as well as Cate....

My given name is Margaret, but I was named is solely so that I could be nicknamed Peggy. Don't call me by any other nickname!

I just wanted to add to the discussion of an eke name. The opposite phenomenon is true of the word "asp." It began as "a nasp" and morphed to "an asp." Are there other examples of this in the English language?

As a thomas I've always been known variously as Tom, Tommy etc. In Italian, the nickname takes the other end of the word: Tomasso becomes "Masso" or even the diminutive "Massino" ...

Which pronunciation is correct for "herb" as in spices?

I hear a lot of people pronouncing the "h" these days, I'd venture to guess that is more correct to pronounce the "h" since the lower class Cockney accent seems to truncate words.

"Woe is I" made it to the NY Sun Crossword last week - Congrats

Is the derivation of 'hunky-dory' known?

yes...one is a red sock fan

#4 (and Patricia)--first, you're rearing your daughters properly!

Second, do your feelings carry over to other teams as well. For a follower of Atlanta to say, "I'm a Brave fan," suggests that he or she is courageous. Although teams from Boston and Chicago use an "x" instead of "cks" in their team names, should we expect a partisan to say, "I'm a Red/White Sock fan,"?

Interesting topic.

How about a nickname for a famous poem? Is there an alternate title for Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken"? It seems that nearly everyone (including Leonard and his guest today) calls it "The Road Less Traveled" which, to me, shifts the focus from lamenting what will never be to "don't follow the crowd".

A language trend, which I find very annoying, continues to thrive. Why do so many people use nouns as verbs, when verb forms of the word already exist?

The most prevalent example I can think of is "conference"; e.g., "You and I should conference about that." I invariably reply, "Yes, when would you like to confer about that?"

Trixie,
yes it is wrong to "ignore resumes" base on one issue. you should look at the whole package. do u never make an error.

Can we briefly discuss the Yankees vs Yankee issue again? ...as in, "I am a Yankee fan" (good) vs. "I am a Yankees fan" (bad to the ear)...to wit...where they play is called Yankee Stadium, sans "s" in Yankee. That extra little "s" just hurts my ears

best, Steve (a life-long Yankee fan)

(Btw, when I was a little boy and didn't know who to root for in the 60s, my dad said to me, "We're Yankee fans...that's it" And that was that. That was the credo I repeated to my daughters.)

Is it correct to say "in regardS to" rather
than "in regard to" ? I'm sifting through
job applicants and tend to ignore those who
say they are responding "in regards to";
is it wrong to automatically dismiss those
who use that phrase ?

Thanx, Trixie (nickname - given name Paulette)

If someone says "We are needing your help" instead of "We need your help" is that correct? Why would you use the former? I hear it on the news, co-workers, everywhere. He is wanting a raise. They are needing direction. Are these constructions correct?

Thanks!

Leonard and Patricia,

I getting very tired of hearing the verb "try" followed by the word "and". Such as "I am going to try and find the book." I want to ask folks how they would diagram that sentence!

I was listening to an interview on BBC this morning in which an Israeli major (or maybe it was a colonel) used "and" in this way several times. It really seemed to stand out to me with a speaker with a strong accent and that I assume was not a native English speaker.

I'd love to hear your thoughts. I always enjoy hearing you on Leonard's show.

Thank you,
Neal